Recent reviews by Mailer

I will admit. When I first saw this game exclusive to the Epic Games Store, I ridiculed it for what it was, but after having played it now on Steam I can right my premature joviality a bit. Because this game is actually pretty entertaining now.

For one, I've heard that the game now has a much better sense of direction and progress compared to its launch, and I appreciate that there is actually some coherence to the story, even if it is "so badly voice acted that it is funny".

Some of the story missions are absolutely hilarious, at times ridiculous premises, and have strangely high production value for what they are. The voice acting almost speaks for itself in ambition.

While there are also smaller shorter heists and daily jobs that don't seem to vary as much, overall it is a positive experience to play through, if you don't mind smaller odd jobs between the big heists.

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What has hampered my experience with the game is the performance, and ultimately I blame modern day Unreal Engine for a lot of it. I don't want to sit a whole minute or two in the main menu waiting for the shaders to build every single time. When I try to run the game at DX11, which I've always found to be most stable DirectX in the past, Unreal crashes whenever the cops show up and start shooting.

I'm playing on a GTX 1660 SUPER, i5-10600K and 16 GB of RAM, and I get a very playable experience at Low settings. I feel like many of the Unreal Engine bells and whistles are not worth it on this game. If it was more approachable on lower specs, it would definitely find a bigger footing of players that host their own servers and have a good time, like other heisting games that are still alive today.

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In summary, this game is worth it, especially with the pretty reasonable launch offer, but try to get a better PC (especially GPU) than mine before you purchase. I'm hoping that the devs can cut a lot of the unnecessary glitter out and in turn also make the game run better at lower specs, given how awful Epic has made the Unreal Engine nowadays.

I have just completed my first gold stakes run and despite how many times I have been spat on and pushed around by RNG to even get to that point, I still come back to this game for more. There is an unshakeable addictive charm around this game; I am not even sure if it is a good kind of charm, but this game has me absolutely hooked and it shows.

With my Steam Deck, and this game alone, I can eat up whatever plane, road or train trip life throws at me like it is just a minor inconvenience of time that passes in an instant. I have never had this feeling about a game so strongly as I do about this game. This is the ultimate time-waster bar none, and therefore, one of the best games on the go that you can find.

Even more good news is that there is a new Beta branch that addresses some balancing issues and also enables more players to try the higher difficulties of play should they want to. Personally I haven't minded the high stakes as much, since I am absolutely hooked already, but I am glad that more people will be able to play this game at a difficulty that they think is fair.

The gist of it all is, this game is an absolute blast of a roguelike deckbuilder, and with only just a smidge of interest in poker, I can absolutely recommend this game to anyone.

This is a pretty good remaster of Hot Pursuit, all things considered.

Even as a standalone product I think the original Hot Pursuit had some really great looking cars and police-cars in the roster. This remaster lost the license to some of the ones in the base game (like the SLR McLaren), but it is a small price to pay for getting a chance to use some of the previously DLC-exclusive cars. They are fantastic.

The cars all look really stellar, as does the open map and environments. I think the original Hot Pursuit didn't even need a remaster for how well it still holds up, but the primary focus seems to be on renewing online and adding crossplay. There are some new QoL features like a proper color wheel on cars, as well as being able to skip even more cutscenes in-between events. These are welcome additions.

The EA Play launcher is NOT a welcome addition however. I've had some problems getting the game to launch properly. Most of the time the launch button ends up not doing anything even after EA Play wakes up, but I've found that forcibly shutting down EA's Background Utility in the task manager usually makes the game launch properly afterwards. Now it is just a fairly small inconvenience.

I'm also not sure if the crossplay feature in the game is reliable or if it just ends up causing infinite loads but it is thankfully optional to use.

Still, you can enjoy this game as a singleplayer as game, with both Cop and Racer branches of events. I recommend alternating between them so you get the full experience of all weapons and mechanics at once as you progress.

At a significant discount, as most EA games come to end up after not long at all, this game is absolutely worth buying, as long as you can avoid most of the troubles with EA Play. One of the better modern Need for Speed games out there, and at least the soundtrack isn't full of horrid modern rap. The OST is actually pretty good, and most of the key songs are still in it.

Though, I must wonder why Weezer is in there...

Steam Deck users look here!
If you want controller support through the Steam Deck, press the STEAM button when in the game, navigate to "Controller Settings", then choose the standard "Gamepad with Joystick" preset out of Steam Input's own list. Basically just make sure Steam Input is properly ON. Then quit and restart.
For some reason, this makes the game suddenly recognize that a controller is "connected" and the controller options open up in the main menu.

If you want to make your own button config in-game after that, you can do that too I'm sure.
Also don't forget to set your resolution in the video launch settings before you play!
(I recommend 720p instead of 800p for this game on the Deck.)

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With that out of the way, the game launches fine and looks great on the Steam Deck. No tweaking necessary so far apart from the video settings, which is the only thing you need to navigate with the cursor one time.
Will update the review more once I've finished the prologue, but so far so good!

EDIT: The prologue and everything around it ran absolutely fine, with no issues to performance or anything like that on the Deck so far!
I'm impressed by how well it holds up, and I can't wait to play through it all on the go, just like the PS3 times. Nobody drinks alone in Paris.

Thank you EA; This was a rare but terrific move on your part!
Keep bringing more classic games over to Steam and I'll buy them too, especially knowing some of them work on the Deck.

Look, my review wants to make it absolutely clear that, while this game definitely isn't as long and full of content as Borderlands 2 or 3 is, it has its own merits that I think overwhelmingly deserves that you check it out, especially if you like Borderlands 2 and want more of it.

The biggest merit by far is the playable characters. This game has the best skill trees of any Borderlands game in the franchise, and it embarrassingly kicks in the teeth of Borderlands 3's mundane and frankly boring skill trees and characters, by introducing some absolutely amazing and creative capstones and abilities that I guarantee you are going to enjoy at late game play.

Do you want to control a howitzer cannon on your shoulder that shoots tandem with your normal gun, it has that. Do you want to shove a disco-ball on your face and spew colorful lasers everywhere, or embody a pirate ship shooting cannonballs, it also has that.
Do you want to gain damage for picking up money? It has that too. Do you want to be a ruthless gladiator and dash across the battlefield slashing up enemies and dousing them in blood, it even has that.

This is only the tiniest piece of so many unique and creative builds you can make in this game, and the only major content DLC for this game is only going to amplify your bat-s*** broken and hilarious gunplay crusade even further.

I am truly saddened that this game got a short shelf life, because once you get into the character that you pick, you will undoubtedly see just how much fun there is to unpack in this game.
With so many Borderlands bundles out there, this is a brief but baller rockstar among them.
I extremely recommend that you give this game a try, especially while there are still very few people left playing it.

I thoroughly am enjoying this remaster.
I used to play tons of RoR 1 on my integrated graphics laptop while waiting on the bus/train because it was one of very few games that ran decently, and it was hard, unfair, but really fun the few times you get a really good run going. Getting overconfident and impatient almost always killed a run for me, or I was just too slow.

This game is much like that. Very faithful to the original in a lot of ways, still feeling like you are getting brokenly overpowered at times, which is awesome. It also has a lot of unfair pitfalls or stiffness, which never bothered me much on medium difficulty, but the good news is this remaster ships with settings to make the game as easy as you want, and Hopoo made the right decision here, making it accessible to all.

I won't be able to run this game on my laptop as well, unfortunately, but for Steam Deck this seems like a must-have.
New characters, new alternate abilities, new items, new challenges, I could spend decades on this game getting better and mastering everything.
Ergo, it is well worth the buy.

Dragon Age: Origins is a really good RPG, and it is definitely worth playing.
I picked this one to play out of my backlog, and with some caveats and tweaking it ran perfectly fine for me on Windows 10. I'd say if you have a modern Windows setup, then look at the discussion forums or PCGamingWiki for help on how to best run it.

The choices, dynamics and quips between characters are really good, and I like the main cast of followers very much. My only major complaint outside of getting the game to run is that some of the combat encounters, and this happens in spikes of difficulty across the game, feel incredibly unfair and pile-on overwhelming, even on medium difficulty.
Dropping difficulty at certain boss encounters, or just save-scum/cheesing your way through, seemed borderline mandatory sometimes, and it made me a bit frustrated, almost dropping the game before finishing. Luckily you have a lot of room for micromanaging what each squad member does during battle while you can pause the fight and really strategize, which is encouraged once you figure it out.

I'm glad I didn't drop it though, because it was super worthwhile playing through the main story the way I wanted to. If you can put up with my gripes then go ahead.

Prey (2017) is good; very *very* good.

I remember also liking the newest Deus Ex games for their clever level designs, where there is always going to be more than one way to skin a cat (for example: getting into a specific room or ambushing an enemy in your favor).

This game has all of that, except dialed up to eleven! The weapons, the human and alien skills, and more importantly the tools that you get early on, allow you to exploit the vertical heights of interior rooms in the game, and rewards intuitive thinking for how to solve a problem with the tools you have. Keycards, versus hacking, versus brute strength, for example. There is almost always another way.

The way they have utilized level design in this game alone deserves a thumb up, but there are also other things I want to praise.

i like the consequential nature of the game, and how you as the main character can choose whether to be empathetic and kind or an absolute menace to other characters you meet in the game. Named characters aren't just immortal for story consistency sake, so you get to carve your effect on it as you want.

The environments have a very interesting look to them which remind me of Bioshock in a way. The game is pretty, and each area is memorable in a different way, barring maybe a couple of zones that don't get used as much in the main story.

The alien enemy designs are fluidly animated and spectacular, and at the start of the game you are off feeling vulnerable and curious of what enemies do. After "researching" and repeated encounters you also promptly get more confident over time, which admittedly can pivot to the game becoming too easy.

Even so, this is why the early hours of the game are precious because they makes you plan your encounters and think about how to approach them cleanly and efficiently. This is where I have to give stealth some credit, even if it becomes a bit outrageous with skill points.

It's not a horror game per-say, but the immersive experience contributed a lot to me going into a pitch black room and feeling eerie. That's another thing I think should be whole-y embraced early on when you feel weaker in the game.

Regarding performance, I ran into a couple of crashing issues of various kinds when running the game at the highest graphics settings. Setting it from "Very High" to "High" however was a lot more stable, and I did not run into any other crashes after that until my first play-through was finished.

I can't comment on the DLCs as of yet, though I've heard the feedback is mixed given the focus on a time limit. This game I don't think has that problem very much, which is at least nice.

Overall through, the base game of Prey (2017) I can absolutely recommend buying, even in 2023.
I can't wait to retry this game on the Steam Deck as well, which I've heard is also a great experience plugged in.

This game is exemplary! There are so many things to praise about it that I've had to do my absolute best to keep this review as brief as possible:

The performance:
Fantastic results, even with the woes of Denuvo, this game runs fantastically on an i5-10600K + GTX 1660 SUPER setup. My rig barely measures to recommendations, but it tackles high settings on 1080p60 incredibly well. These developers knew what they were doing with this game, and it puts many AAA-games to shame.

The characters:
Whether it's friend or foe, robot or human, the characters are all incredibly well made. I love the sense of teamwork development between the main team as the game goes on; the jokes all stick, though some people might find robot dystopias to be a bit cliché, and the cutscenes and transitions make me smile.

The stages and the world:
Colorful, musical, joyful. I love the incorporation of the beat into so many things. The rocking of lids, the start-and-stop commotion of machinery, the lighting, platforms and platforming. Even the UI is pulsating. It's all so telling and it all gets you into a magic rhythm.

The combat:
There are so many options for how to approach a battle. Use of companion abilities, use of your magnet link, ground combos, air combos, parrying and follow-up counters. Special abilities or charge-up abilities. All synced to the beat. It's like being in charge of your own rock song. By far the most potent aspect of the game. If you find yourself lacking, there is also a very effective training mode to try your new abilities until you master them.

The bad guys and bad bots:
Enemies and bosses are all telegraphed visually and by sound; it never feels like an unfair pileup. They put so many directions for how to choreograph boss fights, that they all feel unique in their own way.

Accessibility:
Plenty of options for beginners to learn the beat, and the game is with you every step of the way at first, if you choose to use it. I appreciate all of the ways that the game tries to teach you its mechanics.

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Overall, I cannot recommend this game enough.

So I've finished the main campaign and a single additional campaign DLC that was included with the Vermintide 1 + 2 bundle, which I decided to snag during the Warhammer broadsale, and I now feel obliged to give my thoughts on Vermintide: The End Times.

I think the game is very fun. The Skaven is a very well crafted horde of enemies to slash and blast through; the dialogue from the vermin, as well as the playable characters are very amusing and there are some great relationship dynamics in-between, like say, between the Witch and the Witch Hunter. The special enemies are in their own ways deadly, sometimes they are a little tricky to spot in a crowd, but generally even vanilla bots should be able to help you with these if you do get into trouble so it's fair game.
I think the game looks great and it plays well on high settings (1080p) when subjected to 16 GB of RAM, GTX 1660 SUPER and an i5-10600K.
There is really nothing to complain about, in terms of aesthetics, enemies, or performance from me.

In terms of difficulty, I want to say that Normal difficulty is generally fine even as a solo with bots. However there are some caveats that you will likely experience, especially if you go for harder difficulties and stick with vanilla bots as they are. Namely, bots aren't really smart enough to help you with critical mission objectives and that means you have to sustain swarms of Skaven for longer, the fewer real players you have. This can be a problem if the game doesn't have enough people playing it. I have personally paired up with a few people at a time so I do not think the game is dead in any capacity. However, I do recommend new players to check out any options for modding bots to be a bit smarter, especially if they get stuck on missions where the objective is to defend or destroy key positons.
The vanilla bot-experience is just something to keep in mind if you do buy the game.
Use the Discussion forums to get in touch with good mods that improve the vanilla game!

The variety of weapons, upgrades, rarities, trinkets, etc. works well for the game, and it's fun to try them all out on each character class. So I do really enjoy that aspect of the game. You do very quickly get access to methods of acquiring more weapons or unlocking their potential which is good!

I have only encountered a couple of breaking bugs: one where a teammate that joined was left out to float outside of the map when they joined in progress (during a DLC mission). Another where the map stopped loading briefly, and I had to take a leap of faith and subsequently died falling out of the map. Luckily, I was able to be rescued later so even if you do die the mission isn't necessarily all over, as long as you have some fellow players to match with, and there is some great veteran help to get in this game as it stands.

Overall, I definitely recommend the game, especially when on sale. Just keep in mind a few caveats when playing solo and you should be good to go otherwise. And be kind to the few players that are still joining in because it only makes the horde-slashing experience better!

Feel free to ask further questions in the comments if you are on the brink of buying it!